Jack Coughlin - Running the Maze

“A RAP bullet?”

“Yes,” he said, holding up a heavy brass cartridge and rolling it between his fingers.

“Gimme. Gimme.” She was smiling as Kyle handed her the RAP round. No more tears. He knew they had her.

CONGOLESE CONTRACT WORKERS BONTE Ibara and Guychel Mouko cooked up a hot and spicy stew and ate it hungrily while strips of goat meat sizzled over a small fire. After emerging from their hiding place belowground and seeing the carnage of the battle, they decided to leave. The wide eyes in worried faces of other workers indicated they would not be the only ones abandoning this sinking ship of stone.

While everyone else was still out on the bridge, the two Africans moved fast. First, they slipped into the administrative office, where Guychel ransacked the desks until he found the combination for a small safe. He removed their passports and several hundred euros and American dollars.

Meanwhile, Bonte pecked out a letter on the computer and printed it out on the embossed letterhead of the company that had hired them. It stated that his contract had been fulfilled and he had permission to return home. He signed with a ballpoint pen in the unreadable flourish of a busy, self-important bureaucrat and carefully folded it into an envelope, then did an identical letter for Guychel.

Next, they raided the mess tent and found the pantry stocked with everything they needed. Extra potatoes, a few loaves of bread, some cheese, rice, and even a bottle of wine each went into their sacks. The two men did not return to the workers’ barracks but retreated to a single room attached to the garage where the heavy equipment was serviced. It was a good temporary shelter, and they rested there with full bellies, waiting for the hours to pass.

At two o’clock in the morning, they ventured out, each carrying a canvas bag slung across a shoulder. It was silent all along the bridge, one of those rare moments when all construction had been shut down. They hoisted the gear into the bed of a battered white Toyota truck that Guychel Mouko had hidden among the earthmovers. “I want to put as many kilometers behind us as possible before daylight,” he said, starting the engine.

Ibara climbed into the passenger seat and laid his AK-47 across his lap. “There is no choice. Fucking New Muslim Order!” He spat from the window. “They were probably going to kill all of us workers to keep the secrets of this bridge. The Paki army is going to be arriving tomorrow morning, and all exits will be closed. Then escape will be impossible. On top of that, the Americans will probably be back. They will never let this place exist.”

The truck lurched into motion and left the big garage, passed through a big puddle of light, and crossed the bridge, slowing as it approached the checkpoint at the west end. The guard hut was empty. “We are not the only ones leaving,” Bonte commented.

“Then they are wise, too. Only dead men will be here tomorrow night.” Guychel nodded toward the edge of the road. “These rocks will be slick with blood.”

“Not ours.” The two friends settled into silence and drove away.

LIEUTENANT KHALID ATHAR FAROOQ of the Pakistani Army stood in the gun turret of a Humvee, leading a small convoy of Mercedes-Benz Unimog 1300/L trucks packed with a full platoon of soldiers, with another armored Humvee bringing up the rear. Farooq was tired of sitting down and could get a better view and some fresh air by standing behind the mounted machine gun.

His unit had moved out of its encampment a hundred miles away when orders had come to help with a security problem at the mysterious bridge that was nothing more to him than a location on his map. No urgency had been attached to the instructions. A plan was drawn up as Farooq began the complex task of readying his men for the move; there were a thousand items to check before the wheels could roll. As the hours had passed, newer reports came in about a major battle at the bridge; then all contact was lost. A flyover by a Pakistani air force plane at first light showed that the place seemed abandoned.

Twenty-five-year-old Lieutenant Farooq was an experienced officer, a combat veteran of the lawless tribal areas, and as his convoy neared its destination, he felt a familiar prebattle prickling of the hair on his neck. When his Humvee led the trucks around still another hairpin curve in the mountain road, the entire bridge complex came into view about three kilometers ahead. It was huge, precisely carved from layers of stone at the back of a broad valley, and seemed ghostly still. Farooq brought the convoy to a halt, unwilling to take his platoon farther before some reconnaissance. They could use a brief break to prepare for whatever lay ahead, and the lieutenant climbed out and walked forward a hundred meters, accompanied by his platoon sergeant.

“Nothing is moving down there, sir,” said the sergeant, scanning his binoculars over the entire area.

“Put together a small patrol, Sergeant, and send a Humvee down for a quick look,” the lieutenant replied. “Let the rest of the men get out of the tracks to stretch, then make them ready, weapons locked and loaded. I don’t like this place.”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant turned away but stopped when the lieutenant, with his binoculars still at his eyes, grabbed him by the arm.

“Hold on, Sergeant. Look at the far end of the valley to the south, just above the hills.”

The sergeant no longer needed the big glasses. Two fast-moving F-18 fighter-bombers were streaking in low, and large canisters were tumbling free beneath them, glinting in the early sunlight. Both soldiers spun away and broke into a run back toward the trucks, screaming at their troops, “Take cover! Incoming!”

The pair of U.S. Air Force F-18s from Kandahar peeled out of their run, the thundering engines roaring off the cliffs and mountains. Another strike set was coming in right behind them, already toggling their switches when the first large napalm containers slammed into the valley and exploded, splashing out tidal waves of the incendiary fuel-gel mixture.

The first bombs struck near the old fallen bridge, and each of the others marched just a little farther up the valley, cooking it with immense heat and roaring flames that rolled forward in swaths of orange, red, yellow, and black. The mission was to turn the valley into a wasteland by saturating the hillsides with the hellish brew that would burn out the motion sensors and cameras and anything else that the deadly fingers of napalm could touch.

After the second set of F-18s banked out of their bomb runs and screeched away, Lieutenant Farooq peered from his hiding place in a ditch and saw that the valley had been turned into a charred and burning wilderness that stank of jet fuel. Then he looked at the bridge, which seemed untouched, still dominating the area. His men, emerging from their cover, were also staring at the balls of fire still lashing the valley. “Hold up on that patrol, Sergeant, and set up defensive positions here until we can figure out what’s going on,” Farooq said. “I’ve got to report this.” He took his time getting to the radio, trying to keep his hands from shaking, thankful to still be alive. The mighty crush of the napalm had fallen almost two miles away, and he still had felt the flash of its heat, as if it had landed right on top of him.

Three B-52H Stratofortress bombers that had been around longer than the men who flew them had taken off hours before from the isolated secret base on the island of Diego Garcia, a thousand miles from the coast of southern India. Eight engines hung below swept-back wings with a span of 185 feet carried the large planes at a very high altitude with ease, unseen by anyone below.